If Christmas is the time when adults pander to their inner child, then it is holiday season all year round at Papabubble. Tokyo's premier purveyor of artisan candies is no ordinary sweet shop: it's more like a Santa's grotto — complete with happy toiling elves.
The brightly colored array of packages and objects filling the walls, tables and shelves is likely to lure you in. And the tantalizing sweet aroma filling the air may entice you to buy. But it's the sight of the candies being made in front of your eyes that will make you linger as wide-eyed as an 8-year-old.
At the Papabubble store in Kamiyama-cho, a 10-minute walk from Shibuya Station (though closer to Yoyogi-Koen or Yoyogi-Hachiman), more than a third of the shop floor is devoted to the workspace. You can watch as the young crew of candy craftsmen and women — all dressed in natty black T-shirts and matching caps — vigorously pull, roll, massage and then shape and chop the sweets on the wide metal counter.
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